Maybe my calls are having an effect. Today was the first time in quite a long time that I did not see any panhandlers standing at the intersection, which I called the police about yesterday.

Doing my part to annoy the panhandlers.

Every morning I get to drive by a number of these lazy, useless people, holding their cardboard signs containing some lame excuse why I should give them my hard earned money. Today I had another opportunity to annoy some of them. Lately they have figured out that if they push the crosswalk button at one of the main intersections on my commute, they can hold up traffic in the left lane, thus providing themselves with a captive audience. The other day I called the police station and found out that these losers are allowed to practice their deceipt as long as they do not disrupt traffic. I complained about their little crosswalk trick and the police told me that this was not allowed and they dispatched an officer to look into it. Today I saw the same pair of panhandlers but they had modified their little game. One of them would hold the sign while the other walked around the corner with a garbage bag like he was picking up trash. While I appreciate his sincere desire to make the world a cleaner place, I do not appreciate his pushing the crosswalk button every time he walked past it, so I called the police and complained about him again.

It annoys me that these con-artists prey on the gullible compassion of passing drivers, when they should be out working for a living like the rest of us, but I can usually just ignore them. When they find a way to really inconvenience me, am more than happy to return the favor.